Page 4 RAIN June/July 1983 REAL SECURITY by Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins The Lovinses, past contributors to RAIN, are consultants active in energy policy in over 15 countries. This article is based on their book Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security, published in 1982 by Brick House (Andover, MA). Brittle Power resulted from the Lovinses' 1981 study commissioned by the civil-defense arm of the Pentagon. It's rich in technical detail and cites more than 1200 references, but is easily understandable by the general reader. Though it will challenge military and Congressional decision makers for some time to come, its immediate worth to local leaders, activists, planners, and homeowners is considerable. America's security faces many serious threats. Strategic planners, however, have tended to focus almost exclusively on the military threat. They have largely ignored equally grave vulnerabilities in America's life- support systems. Such vital services as energy, water, food, data processing, and telecommunications are very easy to disrupt. Their failure would leave our Nation helpless. A handful of people, for example, cOuld turn off three-quarters of the oil and gas supplies to the eastern States, for upwards of a year, in one evening's work without leaving Louisiana. A few people could black out a city, a region, or even the whole country for months— perhaps for years. Attacks on certain natural gas systems could incinerate a city. Sabotage of a nuclear facility could make vast areas uninhabitable. All these could be accomplished by simple, low-technology attacks. And because terrorist attacks on the energy system are so devastating—yet cheap, safe, deniable, and even anonymous—they may become the most attractive form of military attack (as Libya and other countries have already threatened). Yet a free society has no direct means of defense against such surrogate warfare. In 1979, the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency commissioned us to survey the vulnerabilities of the U.S. energy system, and what could be done about them. We were shocked to find how far misapplied technology had already jeopardized national security. In effect. Federal energy policy was undermining the mission of our Armed Forces. Nor has this improved. Present policy subsidizes the most vulnerable energy technologies, to the tune of more than $10 billion per year. Thus it is our own Government which is making our Nation's energy supplies ever easier to turn off. America's energy vulnerability comes from excessive centralization and complexity. Most of our energy now comes from dense clusters of billion-dollar devices which take a decade to build. Most are computer-controlled with split-second timing. They deliver power or fuel over distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles, through networks that are elaborate, inflexible, tightly coupled, and hooked up so that they cannot work without each other. Electric grids depend on many large, precise machines rotating in exact synchrony, strung together by a continental web of frail aerial arteries. Without this synchrony, the grid cascades towards collapse. Gas grids, too, collapse if their pressure is not continuously maintained. Spare parts for the complex machines are often special-order items which cost too much to stockpile, yet take months or years (and unique, scarce skills) to make and install. It would be hard to devise a better recipe for easy disruption; massive, catastrophic failures; and slow, difficult recovery. But the stakes are high. The most obvious risks are to our lives and liberties. A well- planned attack on the energy system could cause abrupt lurches backwards, by decades if not centuries, in our economic progress and standard of living. Energy vulnerability has also allowed a major shift in the power balance between large and small groups in society. This, in turn, threatens to erode the freedoms and the trust which underpin Constitutional government. These risks are frighteningly real: so real that we deeply questioned whether they should be publicly exposed. Might it not be better to hope that they will pass unnoticed? However, it is already too late for that. Incidents ranging from the New York City blackout to the recent bomb-extortion incident at the giant Baytown petrochemical plant are part of a large pattern of technical accidents, natural disasters, and deliberate attacks
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